the blood of the divine Saviour; and the defilement of which, can be taken away by any other power than that of the Holy Spirit.

He who breaks God's law, does in effect invade and assail the happiness of the universe, and does what he can to spread ruin and death over the creation. He lends his aid to the production of all the vast accumulation of evils that afflict our race-helps on the cause of destruction and misery, and in a manner, blows the fires of hell into an intense fervency. Well may every sinner exclaim, "What have I done?"

Many who are afraid to walk the road to hell, are yet ashamed to take the road to heaven.

It is not so much the particular sins a man commits, that create and aggravate guilt, as the circumstances under which he commits them. The greater guilt of the people of Capernaum, over that of the people of Sodom, grew out of the fact that they sinned under circumstances more favorable to the cultivation of piety and virtue.

The moral aspect of a community or an individual is no certain criterion by which the depravity and guilt of that community or individual can be determined. Who would have supposed the moral and sober people of the cities which the Saviour upbraided, more guilty than the cities of the plain, if Christ had not told us they were? Yet his word assures us of the fact. So in the judgment day, many human judgments will be reversed.

SINNERS.

That there is a conviction of guilt upon the universal mind of man, we cannot have a more satisfactory proof, than in the fact that there has never been on the face of the earth, a religion which has not supposed man a sinner, and exposed to the vengeance of his Maker, and never a religion whose rites have been entirely eucharistic and not deprecatory.

A man cannot be a sinner, without being a great sinner; for great is the Being offended, great the authority disregarded, great the light resisted, great the benefits despised, and great the penalty incurred. No man was ever truly convinced of sin, who was not convinced that he was a great sinner.

Admitting that ordinary sinners, not professing Christianity, shall not, other things being equal, be as guilty, or suffer as much, as the insincere professor, what of that? They yet contract guilt-great guilt-guilt that will inevitably and deeply drown them, if they continue as they are. And is not this enough to silence selfgratulations. What if the depth to which they shall sink in perdition is not, by a few feet, so profound, as the faithless professor will find! What if there shall be two or three degrees of difference in the intensity of the flame that shall burn within and around them! Is that any thing to boast of and to be pleased with?

In how sad a dilemma is every sinner, until he surrenders himself, without reserve, to the authority of

Jesus Christ. If he does not vow, he sins; and if he merely vows, he sins yet more. children from baptism, he sins;

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If he withholds his and yet he cannot,

remaining as he is, have them properly baptized, without sinning. If he refrains from the Lord's supper, he sins; and if he comes to it, he sins. And nothing can extricate him from this dilemma, but his becoming a real penitent and a devoted disciple of Jesus Christ.

How melancholy the thought that many are growing worse; first, because there is so much need of their getting better; and secondly, because such rare advantages for becoming better are enjoyed; and thirdly, because earth is the only place, and life the only season for affecting any change from bad to good.

The bondage of sin over the soul, is like the bondage of death over the body; and the sleep of sin, like the sleep of death, requires a blast from a trumpet, even mightier than the archangel's, to break its power.

The soul may be for a long time so embalmed in moral virtues, as apparently to preserve it from being highly offensive, yet not being alive unto God, it is dead, and corruption must sooner or later be dreadfully manifest.

FOLLY OF SIN.

The man of the world, equally with any other man, is an immortal, and shall never die. He shall always think, and feel, and be happy or miserable; and yet his plans, his pursuits, and his provisions, have reference only to the mortal. His is the folly of the man who should put to sea on the voyage of a year, with the bare sustenance of a day; or of the caravan which should attempt the crossing of the desert with a single can of water. Whatever he is seeking, be it the world's wealth, or the world's admiration, or pleasure, it is a provision only for the life that now is. His gold has no currency beyond the grave; his distinctions are not recognized there; his pleasures perish with him. When he cometh to that dividing stream, he finds that every thing he possesses is contraband, and cannot even. be smuggled into eternity. Naked and destitute as a newborn child he goes. "We brought nothing into the world, and it is certain that we can carry nothing out."

As to those gay and happy creatures, into whose reckoning the pleasures of God and devotion do not enter, it is but to alter their circumstances a little, and they become dull and miserable. It is but to bid them away from the field of their customary amusements, and to introduce them to a spiritual world, and they are sad, and forlorn, and wretched. They shall be

happy so long as the playhouse opens its inviting doors -so long as the gay and bright assembly holds out its most beguiling charms-so long as the fashion, and glitter, and imposing pomp of the world remain to them. Let the recess, brought in by death, come to these things, and perfect misery is the necessary result.

He who digs for wealth, ought to know that every ounce of earth he throws up, is excavated from his own grave; and he, of pallid look, that sits hour after hour, studying for the crown of literary distinction, that the very lamp, by which he labors for the prize, is fed by the precious oil of life, that will soon be all wasted away; and the man that dashes through dust and blood, in the fierce pursuit of military glory, knows well that his struggle is in the field of death, and that often it is the cold hand of death that puts the wreath of glory on his brow. Yet is their folly not cured.

DEPRAVITY.

The power of sin is such, that without divine aid, the profligate would not forsake his debaucheries, though a mysterious finger should write his condemnation in letters of flame before him, and add eternity in capitals; and the drunkard, when he feels the burning sensation of thirst at his breast, will, for the quieting of that sensation, deliberately barter the world, yea,